EUROPEANS CLUCKING OVER THE PERCULIAR WAY AMERICANS TREAT THEIR LEADERS

PARIS -- Europeans are having extra tongue exercise clucking at peculiar American habits, especially the way the U.S. treats presidents and presidential candidates.

Certainly, the way leaders are chosen in other democracies is very different from the American system. They must first rise to prominence inside their parties and only then, when they have demonstrated some talent for organizational leadership, are they exposed to serious tests of public appeal. Even so, personality and image are seldom major issues.

So the question of whether or not Gary Hart has girlfriends doesn't seem to have anything to do with politics. People here rather enjoy gossip about their leaders' peccadilloes, but they don't expect to read about it in the public print or hear it discussed on TV just as they don't expect their own private lives to be displayed. They put Americans' fascination with such things down to a Puritan heritage and shrug it off.

Character is indeed an important factor in choosing a president, but is sexual activity a sign of character? In Hart's case, it seems as though many Americans were just waiting for something concrete to tick him off about. There is something enigmatic about the man that seals him off, an invisible plastic wrapping that prevents the emission of whatever radiation it is that can arouse enthusiasm. He seems to try too hard to explain himself, and that provokes a suspicion that he has something to hide.

On the dalliance issue, both the public and the press have been inconsistent. Nothing was said about Franklin D. Roosevelt's private life until long after he died. Adlai Stevenson's campaign was hurt considerably by the fact that he was divorced. Nelson Rockefeller's chances were sharply set back because a photographer happened to snap the woman who later became his second wife hurrying down the fire escape of the governor's mansion when a blaze broke out in the middle of the night. Dwight D. Eisenhower's wartime affair and John F. Kennedy's active love life were discreetly overlooked.

Americans appear not only unpredictable but inscrutable to others when it comes to what they do and do not want to know about their government and their leaders. The idea of President Reagan not knowing what his White House was up to and forgetting when he approved some of its actions would be seen as a great deal more damaging than a deliberate cover-up by a European leader's electorate.

As Le Monde commented on the Iran-Contra hearings: "What would have been the ultimate consequences of the Greenpeace affair if the same principle were applied?" Greenpeace was the environmentalists' ship blown up in a New Zealand harbor, killing a photographer, by French secret agents to prevent its sailing to protest French nuclear testing at Mururoa Atoll. The scandal in France was that two agents were caught and jailed, and Paris's eventual success in negotiating their release was considered a satisfactory resolution of the affair.

The principle Le Monde was talking about was that "the search for truth from government should not be blocked by purposes of state except in extraordinary circumstances." The paper called the congressional hearings an "exercise in self-flagellation that is practically unique among free nations" and pointed out that while "it evokes astonishment and sometimes admiration from the rest of the world, so far it has inspired few imitators."

That is a far cry from Sen. Warren Rudman's statement at the opening of the hearings. He said there had been "an inexcusable fiasco of the first order" but that the inquiry "will demonstrate the self-corrective nature of our democratic government." That is surely true, and it represents the American wish to be assured of probity, respect for law, and sound judgment in public affairs.

Getting at the truth is considered healthier for the nation's larger purpose and more protective against more fiascoes in the future than hiding embarrassing facts on the pretext of reasons of state.

But ... is it really sincerity or just the image of sincerity that the American public seeks? The age of television has drastically changed the way people perceive leaders. TV provides both an intimacy and a manipulative mask that are in contradiction and which encourage self-deception.

Still, TV has dominated the political arena for a generation now. Viewers have learned to discern what to believe and what to disregard when it comes to advertising, drama and such. What does it take for the electorate to see through political image-making to reach a confident sense of the character they are asked to judge for leadership? The answer is yet to come.